Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ben Bacarisse Newsgroups: comp.lang.javascript Subject: Re: Using break in while loops bad habit? Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 10:50:38 +0000 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 39 Message-ID: <87mvs3b1q9.fsf@bsb.me.uk> References: <94ec98fa-9956-48c9-ad34-de8d07cd6419@googlegroups.com> <87io2tf0xq.fsf@bsb.me.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="017616aa25f81ec581c44d76d61ba2f3"; logging-data="11413"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX186v1SvAwUJ9D5Zpkvz/Bs/bb6Cso7A5z8=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:pcVo+FxERlHUgb6BOydzGmHRh6w= sha1:I4rShignf0oojEBGmAvlnUVCoNI= X-BSB-Auth: 1.012069236a5fcee9987d.20160118105038GMT.87mvs3b1q9.fsf@bsb.me.uk Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.javascript:29303 "Michael Haufe (TNO)" writes: > On Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 7:29:46 PM UTC-6, Ben Bacarisse wrote: > >> Did CPL have break? I can't find it in the most widely published paper >> on CPL[1] but CPL evolved a lot and was never finalised so it may well >> have acquired break by the end. Do you have a better reference? > > It's implied in the abstract of the BCPL document [1] That's a strong deduction to make from a casual remark! But since BCPL has clearly made other changes not listed there, I don't think you can conclude that removing types is literally the *only* change. >> Did Algol have it? I don't think so. > [...] >> I'm not just nit-picking. Your idea is that it's lost in time in some >> committee's vanished collective memory, but break seems to have been >> added by BCPL -- a design be a single, still living, individual. So if >> that's the case one could ask! > > It's a valid criticism. I did the listing from memory. Having read a > number of perspectives on the ALGOL period and Structured Programming, > it's very possible I only saw this feature in one of the suggested > successors to ALGOL 60 that never saw the light. > > I took your advice and sent an email to Martin Richards [2] from my > .edu account. With any luck he would be willing and able to give some > more explicit insight on the time period and this feature. It was a > tumultuous period indeed. Thanks. I'm be interested to hear what he says (and I wonder why I never thought to ask myself). It seems unlikely that break was invented for BCPL, but you never know... CPL seems to have had a rather chaotic design, so it may have had many features come and go. And what influences there were around at the time is hard to determine now. -- Ben.